


Discordant

by OnceAndFloral



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Character Study, Stream of Consciousness, i have no idea what this is i just wrote it, i'm a band nerd and as such i have to use bullshit symbolism from symphonic relationships, only a little bit tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceAndFloral/pseuds/OnceAndFloral
Summary: There’s an often little talked about thing in bands, particularly symphonic ones, about the amount of violins you have. You either have one, or three or more. You never have just two violins.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	Discordant

There’s an often little talked about thing in bands, particularly symphonic ones, about the amount of violins you have. You either have one, or three or more. You never have just two violins. 

There’s a somewhat similar concept for bassoons. Due to the way they are built, there is no way to tune the instrument by pulling a slide or mouthpiece. You have to use your embouchure to keep it in tune, a very difficult thing. As such, a band should always have two or more bassoons, so they can hear each other’s pitch and stay in tune.

Except it’s not really similar, is it? Two bassoons function well together just as well as three, or four, or five, for that matter. But there’s something, some strange thing that affects the sound when there’s only two violins. You could call it a weak sound, but one violin on its own would sound better than two. Maybe it’s something about the lack of frets and how with just two their discordant over and undertones are much more exposed.

But it’s not that either. There’s something about it being in a _band_ with other people. Something just doesn’t… work right.

This is a concept Marius thinks a lot about the first time he meets Nastya Rasputina. She just appears on the ship. No one except Raphaella seems the least bit surprised by this, so he tries his best to just shrug it off.

Except every interaction with Nastya feels _off_. Every conversation they try to have seems to hit a dead end in less than a minute. It doesn’t make sense, by all means. There isn’t much about Nastya that Marius hates, in fact he finds other crew members much less tolerable on paper, but in action he and Nastya just don’t _work_.

His playing also feels worse. It may or may not be him getting up in his own head, but it feels as though he’s missing more notes than he usually does. Marius doesn’t much care for it.

Her visits are shorter and shorter. Nastya always leaves, and the rest of the Mechanisms say she will always come back, but to Marius it feels like she’s slowly drifting further away all the while and no one else realizes it because they assume it’s a hard and fast rule a Mech always returns to the ship.

And then eventually she doesn’t return. Years go by, and nothing. Not even a message. It takes a while for everyone else to accept it, but Marius knows. He thinks maybe it’s because even though two violins can’t play together, they still know how the other works. For a second Marius even wonders if he’s the reason she left permanently. She clearly sensed the tension between them as well. But he decides that no, she had many complex things going on and that if she left because of him, it was only a tiny part of a larger beast.

Maybe if Nastya comes back, he’ll be the one to leave. Who is he to refute the relational acoustics?

**Author's Note:**

> Me and my band director were talking about this concept last night and so my garbage brain immediately jumped to these two losers. I'm sorry for this incoherent shit, I've just been at a jazz fest for three days in a row, i'm on a one track mind rn.


End file.
